Haikyo Roundup

There’s been a lot of haikyoing action happening round the Kanto plain recently, with some new faces (to me) and new info on old locations- here’s the round-up:

Tokyo Times– Lee’s been busy since I last updated here, going to the Underground Vault I found at Yamanakako lake and solving its mystery with the revelation that it was a Sanyo Securities hide-away. He managed to identify one of the vault symbols in the banner of a Sanyo magazine left lying around- keen eyes! Though I think he told me it wasn’t actually him that spotted it. Very honest! After that, he went to a recently abandoned Love Hotel- still hoping to hear the location of it from him 🙂 (Lee….?)

Swifty– A chap called Edmund Yeo headed with some of his friends out to see the Hotel Royale and Sun Hills Car Park (these links to my posts). They reported, as others have recently, that the Hotel Royale is impossible to get access to. Sun Hills was fine though. He added some details on about Sun Hills, which either he Googled (more skilled than me) or read about it in a haikyo book I don’t have:

“[Sun Hills is] a ‘cursed’ hotel that was recently demolished. Its tale was a sad and tragic one. A hotel guest set the place on fire to kill himself and took down parts of the hotel. The owners, debt-ridden, and desperate by the damage caused, hung themselves in the hotel as well.”

Dark. I hadn’t known that when we were there. Edmund is also a short film director with some success- kudos.

Cousin Macho– Tom sent me the email that let me know about Swifty above, and also his own exploration of the Toyo Bowl in Kanagawa recently. He’s got his photos on Flickr.

Misuterareta– This was the first haikyo trip I went on with someone I didn’t really know. Paul and I hooked up over the net, and he suggested a shared haikyo. It was great cos he brought a location to the table I knew nothing of, and likewise did I. We had a good time chatting about the hobby on the long drive into Chiba- but you can read all about that on my post. Together we hit up the Namegawa Island Theme Park, I can’t even remember who tipped me off to it, and to the Yui Grand Love Hotel that Paul’s family tipped him off to.

Oh man, The Royal is now kitted out with security cameras? I suppose there’s every chance they could be fake, but then if the building is for sale…Don’t think I’d want to risk it, though I had planned on going 🙁

I went to Sports World today. The main building (the restaurant in particular) is in a really bad way – hardly a piece of glass left intact anywhere. It seems as though the local youth use the place as something of a social venue – I noticed a bin full of empty, recent-looking beercans in there, and the furniture had been arranged in such a way as to suggest that it was being used for regular meet-ups. The car park at the front has also been turned into a makeshift skatepark – I figure that the kids go inside for a bit of mindless vandalism once they get tired of skateboarding.

In happier news, the hotel rooms that I checked out were all in the untouched, well-preserved condition you describe in your initial report.

A word of warning: access to Sports World is super-easy, but navigating around the site is quite perilous at times, given how overgrown the place has become. The area around the pool and waterslides is especially jungle-like at the moment; I wouldn’t recommend attempting an explore here unless you’re wearing some long trousers and sturdy, closed footwear.

Richard- Right, thanks again for that tip-off and info, sorry to forget who you were :(. Most difficult, it’s definitely in the top 3. Alongside it would be Kemigawa Transmission base which is simply impossible to get into, and the Negishi Grandstand which required climbing skills as well as bottle to do it right next to a US Navy base. Post going up this Friday.

Kev- I haven’t seen for myself, but I heard from two separate reports it’s kind of a no-go now. You don’t want to get caught if the owners are vigorously protecting the place.

Tom- Ah, well. The skate kids were there when I went both times, at least in the tennis courts area, but I suppose they’re getting bolder of late. At least the hotel rooms are still weirdly pristine. Good note on the overgrowth, I was in shorts and sandals when I went and ploughed through regardless- got pretty well scratched up. I enjoyed your photos- shame about the water on the lens, the slides look great slick with rain.